Tag Archives for scanning

Poll Results: What type of scanners are companies using to scan to SharePoint?

Conducted a poll over about 3 months, and wanted to see what type of devices people were using to scan to Microsoft SharePoint.  The results are in tune with what I see in the field, as folks are using a distributed scanning model with SP to put scanning into the hands of the knowledge workers.  Below are the results:

Ooops. Did we backup the file cabinets?

If you look at the headlines over the past few years, you cannot help but notice the number of natural disasters that have occurred. In my conferences with IT and Departmental Management, I always pose the question when discussing business continuity or disaster planning: Do you have a plan for your paper?

Just about every company has implemented some type of plan for backing up their important digital files. Some go to the extreme with data snapshots that can be recovered from multiple locations. But companies typically don’t take the same strategy with their paper assets. The good ole file cabinet, the protector of all things paper will provide protection, right?

Companies need to take a good hard look at their paper, and assess the business impact should disaster destroy their file room. Backing up your paper nowadays is not hard, nor expensive when compared to the legal implications and time it would take to reproduce (if possible) contracts, customer files, sales records and the like.

Any paper backup plan involves a concept i call Bridging the Gap (BTG). BTG involve hardware and capture software to digitize and build the bridge to the digital world, and then a repository on the “other side” to house the records and make search and retrieval simple. The repository can be as simple as a set of named network folders, or as complex as a true ECM system like MS SharePoint. Take the initiative and backup your paper today.

The Two Most Popular Features for Scanning to SharePoint

So, when I look at all the customers I have worked with, and examine the feature sets that are most applied in a SharePoint environment, there are two that stand out: Routing Sheets and Advanced Data Extraction.  I would say 90% of all my customers use these features in some way to make the process automated and efficient.  So, what are they?  How do they work?  Outlines below:

Routing Sheets

I have mentioned these quite a bit on the BLOG, and they lend themselves nicely to distributed scanning from MFPs/Copiers, Faxs, network scanners, etc.  A routing sheet is a combo of barcodes and/or checkboxes that can allow the end users to index prior to the scan.  The information can then be translated into metadata.  This feature requires Optical Mark Recognition, or OMR.  So make sure your scanning product supports OMR.  Below are some samples:

Legal Routing Sheet

HR Routing Sheet

Advanced Data Extraction (ADE)

Many of the solutions out there today support what is called Zoning, or the ability to pick information from a specific area on a page and enter it as metadata.  ADE takes that to a whole new level and provides the ability to match patterns and extract information.  So if a customer needs an order number that is 6 digits, and always starts with a 7, the extraction engine can search the whole page and extract.  This is a huge time saver, and allows the utmost in automation and verification of data.

 

Barcodes, SharePoint and the Term Store

Just finished a really cool implementation for a large commercial property management company.  Their SharePoint developer built a barcode generation app that creates a cover sheet for paper documents.  The sheet runs lookups to their Term Store, and auto-builds the managed metadata columns as 2D barcode elements.  Here is a sample sheet:

Barcode for Managed Metadata

Managed Metadata in a Barcode

So, using PSI:Capture, you can then auto-extract the barcode elements and map them to columns.  It even supports multi-level term sets.  Below is the end result in SharePoint:

Scan Barcodes with Sharepoint

Barcoded Document in SharePoint

I will get a video demo posted of this Scanning, Barcodes and SharePoint demo soon.

 

Imaging File Size Comparison for Planning – Color and DPI

When planning for scanning to SharePoint, here is a quick matrix for the impact DPI and color can have on file size, and the size of your content DBs.

Scanning Mode/DPI File Size
Black and White – 200 DPI 26K
Black and White – 300 DPI 38K
Black and White – 400 DPI 51K
Black and White – 600 DPI 80K
Greyscale – 300 DPI 301K
Color- 300 DPI 577K

5 Tips for Optimizing Image Size When Scanning to SharePoint

I find quite a few customers are not optimizing their scanning process, and creating very large image files, slamming their network and bloating their content databases.  Below are 5 tips to live by when Scanning to SharePoint:

  1. Scanning at anything greater than 300 DPI is unecessary.   DPI can be a huge killer, and really bloat your file size.  For most instances, 200 dpi is perfectly fine for archive purposes.  If you are using OCR or performing data extraction, 300 dpi will give you a great quality image.  Anything beyond that will give you no better quality, but increases the file size exponentially.
  2. Use color and grayscale sparingly.  Color and grayscale files can be massive, and can be a huge burden on many different aspects of any SharePoint system.  Use them only when absolutely necessary, as black and white images are perfectly acceptable in almost every instance.
  3. Image processing is key.  Having an image processing engine that can despeckle, deshade and remove black borders will reduce file size and conserve storage.
  4. Check you copiers.  Most copiers today like to show off their fancy color capabilities and typically come with default settings to create color scans.  Check DPI and color settings to make sure your users unknowingly are creating massive files.
  5. TIFF or PDF?  This can be a whole additional conversation, and possible next post.  There really is no difference in file size for the same scanned image, and I find PDF is becoming the de facto standard in imaging.

 

 

5 Keys to a Successful SharePoint Scanning Project

Below are 5 primary keys to implementing a successful SharePoint scanning / imaging project:

1.  Make sure you do some in depth storage planning.  

When imaging to SharePoint or Office 365, you need to make sure you plan for not only storage requirements, but also figure out the loading on your network.  Scanning, if done incorrectly, can great a huge burden on your network and bloat your content databases.  More info here: SharePoint Scanning Storage Planning

2.  Leverage existing scanning devices for the pilot project.

Giving users a familiar  interface will go miles towards acceptance.  Make it easy, and leverage copiers or other scanners within the organization to make the transition to paperless workflows familiar.  More on scanning hardware here: SharePoint Scanning Hardware

3.  Involve end users in SharePoint design.

I have seen so many projects where IT just builds what they think users want.  Make the layout of the site a collaborative effort, and build your site and library structures accordingly.  Map paper documents to digital, and leverage content types and managed metadata .  Finally, capture drives search, and make sure appropriate columns are put in place so users can find, sort and create views simply and easily.

4.  Leverage folders for quick adoption.

Here we go, the old folder argument.  Along with creating a familiar environment, users love folders, and they give quite a bit of power in the SharePoint world.    Adding them costs nothing, and they can be turned off for users who don’t want them.  Use folders.

5.  Automation is key, and necessary for standardization.

Make sure you utilize a scanning application that allows for standardization rule set.  Site, library, content type, folder, file naming and terms should all have the ability to be controlled and automatically set.  Automation makes standardization easy, and totally transparent giving you a repeatable, consistent scanning and capture process.